Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History

This book is a comprehensive examination of Olympic victor lists, their origins, development, content, and structure.

Paul Christesen (Author)

9780521866347, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 October 2007

600 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm, 1.05 kg

As a work of scholarship, the book is impressively thorough...For a student or scholar who ishes to wade into the murky waters of ancient chronography, Christesen provides a challenging, but on the whole useful, guide." --New England Classical Journal

This book is a comprehensive examination of Olympic victor lists. The origins, development, content, and structure of Olympic victor lists are explored and explained, and a number of important questions, such as the source and reliability of the year of 776 for the first Olympics, are addressed. Olympic victor lists emerge as a clearly defined type of literature that is best understood as a group of closely related texts. This book offers a fresh perspective on works by familiar writers such as Diodorus Siculus and a sense of the potential importance of less-well-known authors such as Phlegon of Tralleis.

1. An introduction to Olympic victor lists
2. Hippias of Elis and the first Olympic victor list
3. Olympionikon Anangraphai and standard catalogs of Olympic victors
4. Olympiad chronographies
5. Olympiad chronicles
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Olympic & Paralympic games [WSBB], Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]